Two major floods in 1996 washed out sections of the tow path and caused the closure of the Big Slackwater section. Hikers and pedestrians were forced to take a five-mile detour along winding and narrow public roads that offered vehicular danger.

It was a great day in June when Hazleton’s native son Joe Maddon, Manager of the Tampa Bay Rays, came home for a celebration that culminated with the ribbon cutting of the Hazleton One Community Center.

Mr. Maddon, along with a number of area community leaders, founded the Hazleton Integration Project (HIP) with the goal of providing low and no-cost activities for children while building trust and respect among all of the region’s cultures. Called by some a “unity center,” it is envisioned to be a place where children of all the community's ethnic backgrounds can come together in organized sports, educational programs and a wide variety of activities at little or no cost.

HIP raised money through two Maddon-organized sports memorabilia auctions and dinner events featuring celebrity guests including Yogi Berra and Tino Martinez, and solicited contributions from the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation and local corporate sponsors to purchase the former Most Precious Blood Catholic School on East Fourth Street to transform it into the Hazleton One Community Center.

The two-story 64,000 SF building has 20 classrooms, a gymnasium, stage, and cafeteria. Programs will be offered to children and adults this summer including basketball, archery, arts and crafts, music, art, family yoga, and dance.

BIA provided pro-bono grantsmanship services to HIP and was successful in helping the non-profit to obtain a $450,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development with funds derived from gaming revenues. Krista Schneider, RLA, LEED AP, assisted in the grant preparation. The money will fund the design and installation of an elevator, accessible bathrooms, an entrance ramp, efficient lighting and heating fixtures. Asbestos removal will also be addressed. BIA will design and manage the improvement projects.

"This is a really great moment for Hazleton,” said Mr. Maddon during the celebration, “I see this center serving as a positive example for the rest of the country. That's what I see in the future.”

A multi-discipline team led by Bob Korp, AICP, LEED AP, has wrapped up the design phase for the Coatesville Veterans Affairs Medical Center (CVAMC). Serving the medical needs of veterans in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, the CVAMC campus spreads across 128 acres and includes 42 buildings. Subterranean tunnels lace through portions of the campus, connecting buildings and providing a means for patient transport. In 2012, specific areas of two tunnels were experiencing severe water infiltration. Using a Qualifications Based process, contracting officers at the medical center selected BIA to provide investigation, design and construction phase services to eliminate the infiltration, address structural issues, develop a water diversion system, and conduct related concrete work and site restoration. Damage to finishes caused by water infiltration is also being addressed. All design is in accordance with VA Design and Construction Procedures.

The surveyor from Lehighton, Pa., was doing his job about 9 this morning at the site where Lafayette College wants to build a classroom building off South College Drive when a woman approached with a problem.

There was a baby deer in the grass just next to busy College Avenue, the main link between Easton's College Hill and Downtown neighborhoods. The woman feared the deer would be hit by a car, David said.

Both the original Ben Franklin TechVentures renovation and the TechVentures expansion projects engaged Spillman Farmer Architects for design services and Allied Building Corporation for construction management. Barry Isett & Associates was the site and structural engineer.

Barry Isett & Associates (BIA), a multi-discipline engineering firm headquartered in Allentown, PA, is pleased to announce that the company has been named among The Morning Call Top Workplaces.

The Morning Call is a daily newspaper that serves the greater Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton metro area. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, the Call distributes more than 106,000 papers daily with a Sunday circulation in excess of 122,000.

Five hundred Lehigh Valley companies with 50 employees or more were invited to participate in a survey conducted by WorkplaceDynamics, LLP, a leading research firm on organizational health and employee engagement. Seventy-five of BIA’s 100 associates elected to take the survey, which measured workplace satisfaction and organizational health. The tabulation of data placed BIA among the top 30 workplaces, with special honors accorded for Work/Life Flexibility. According to a four-year study conducted by WorkplaceDynamics, companies with high scores for organizational health outperform the Standard and Poor’s500 index by 15% a year.

“This honor is a reflection of the values promoted by Barry and Shirley Isett,” says company president Kevin T. Campbell. “Founded by Barry in 1977, the company is transitioning ownership to associate-shareholders and an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). We have more flexibility than companies whose driving force is achieving only bottom-line profits for shareholders. We value and encourage the professionalism and excellence of our staff members, but we also understand there are times when personal concerns must come first. A company founded by a family understands family values, and lives them every day.”

BIA’s president, Kevin Campbell, HR manager Kimberli Kyra, senior project manager, Ryan Kern, and marketing manager, Francee Fuller accepted the 2013 Top Workplace award at the February 27th celebration at Miller Symphony Hall, Allentown. A special section on the program appears in the March 3rd print edition of the Morning Call and on-line at http://www.mcall.com/business/topworkplaces/